


Friendship Is Not A Malfunction

by PunkPinkPower



Category: Power Rangers Megaforce
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Friendship, Gen, Robot Feels, Robots, Short Circuit - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 02:39:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3102479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunkPinkPower/pseuds/PunkPinkPower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tensou’s favorite way to pass the time is watching old robot movies, and his favorite happens to be playing at the classic theater in town.  Getting there will require Tensou to do something he has never been very good at-- asking the rangers for help.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendship Is Not A Malfunction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Revieloutionne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Revieloutionne/gifts).



> I had no idea what I was going to do with this prompt until I read it to my husband and he said, “You know who Tensou reminds me of?” and I said, “Wall-E?” And he went, “Pfft, no. Johnny Five.” So he deserves some of the credit, too.

It isn’t an easy task being a fully-sentient multifunctional automaton in charge of running and maintaining the Power Ranger’s base of operations. It requires a lot of multi-tasking, watching for suspicious activity, repairing gear, and many more monotonous tasks.

Still, Tensou does occasionally find himself on his own, with time to spare. He enjoys basking in the sun and charging his solar panels, but since Noah has ungraded his panel efficiently, that activity only takes him about four minutes every day. 

And so, when he isn’t helping the Power Rangers save the world, Tensou starts to develop hobbies. 

He tries to learn useful skills at first, like knitting or crocheting, but after all the rangers have several sets of color coded hats, gloves and scarves, he decides to move on from that one. Next he tries Robo-Parkour, but Gosei scolds him for waking him up from his long naps too often, and since he can’t really leave the command center to find new turf he gets bored of it anyway. 

But then Tensou finds it. He’s casually flipping through the human television broadcast channels monitoring them for Ranger-worthy reports when he sees something that makes him pause. 

It’s… it’s a robot! There on his tiny viewing screen is a robot just like him, if not a bit bigger, and Tensou is awestruck. For the first time, he stops multi-tasking through running repair simulations and listening to 300 radio waves simultaneously and just watches his screen. 

“That was wonderful,” Tensou sighs to himself when it ends, and then he immediately goes looking for more. 

Robot movies become Tensou’s hobby. It seems obvious for a robot to like robot movies, if not a little bit vain. But then, Tensou remembers something he once heard Emma say about how everyone wants to see themselves somewhere, and he watches his movies with pride after that. 

Some of them he likes better than others, and there are some robot movies that are almost too scary to watch by himself, but by far, Tensou’s favorite robot movie remains the first one he ever saw; Short Circuit. 

The story of sentience and discovery resonates somewhere deep down in Tensou’s fiber optic cables, and he watches it again, and again, and again. 

He watches it in the background while he does all his other tasks, leaves it on while he charges his solar panels which make the charging take an extra two minutes, and even plays it on a side screen during ranger battles. 

And then one day, while Tensou is running through the 4,137 national and local newspapers he reads every day to keep an eye on the world at large, he runs across the movie showings at the classic movie theater in downtown Harwood County and whirls in place excitedly for a whole three minutes. 

Short Circuit and Short Circuit 2 are playing in a back to back double feature on Saturday night. Tensou lets out a little high pitched noise while he whirls around, imagining what it would be like to watch his favorite movie on the big screen instead of his little internal monitor. 

He stops whirling when he remembers he is a robot, and robots can’t go to movie theaters. 

***

He thinks that Noah will be his most sympathetic audience, since he too likes robots, and therefore the logical extension of robot movies. He wants to pull him aside to ask him, but doesn’t quite know when or how. The rangers so often run in and out of the command center urgently that it’s hard to get a word in with the chaos, and even Tensou isn’t going to interrupt actual important things like Ranger work for his movie. 

He wants to, obviously, but he knows better than that. 

But one day Troy stays behind to talk to Gosei, and Tensou decides to take a chance on him as he leaves. 

“Say, Troy?” Tensou says, speeding up his wheels to keep pace with the red ranger. “Do you like movies?”

Troy looks down at Tensou like he hasn’t heard him. “I’m sorry Tensou, what?” 

“Uh,” Tensou says, his robotic nerve giving way, “I, movies? You like them?” 

“Yes,” Troy says, giving Tensou a small smile, “Though I haven’t seen many lately. Being a ranger hasn’t left a lot of time for things like movies.” 

“Oh, uh,” Tensou says, slowing down as they come to the end of the command center hall, “Right. Okay.”

“Anything wrong Tensou?” Troy wonders, but he’s already pulling out his morpher to teleport out. 

“Oh, no,” Tensou says, “I just… I like movies too. Goodbye!”

And Tensou speeds back to a corner of the command center and taps his head gently against the wall. 

***

He asks Gia next, and this time, he manages to actually get the words out. 

“I’d like to go to a movie,” Tensou says determinedly, while he helps Gia gather rocks just outside the command center to put in her book bag, “Would you take me?” 

Gia pauses, halfway to placing a large grey stone in her back pack. “A movie, Tensou?”

Tensou nods so quickly and enthusiastically that his loose screws jingle in their holes. 

“What would you do at a movie?” Gia wonders, going back to picking up rocks, “And aren’t you sort of needed here?”

“There are times where I’m not needed,” Tensou says, doing his best to push the heaviest rock he can find over to her, “And it wouldn’t kill Gosei to do a little more of the heavy lifting.”

Gia smiles, and he thinks he’s won her over, but she pulls the rock from the mound of sand he’s pushed up bringing it over to her and dusts it off and says, “I’m not sure it’s a good idea, Tensou. What if something happened?”

“Oh,” Tensou says, trying not to feel let down, “Yes, well… I suppose that’s true. I guess I had better get back to work,” he says quickly, and he spins himself around in the sand and leaves Gia on the beach. 

***

Its two days before Tensou gets up the courage to ask anyone else, but time is ticking, and Saturday night is right around the corner. 

Tensou purposefully wheels over Jake’s loose shoe lace so he’ll have to stay behind a moment and retie it. 

“Psst, Jake,” Tensou says, getting right up in his face. 

“Whoa,” Jake says, leaning back, “Hello Tensou. Can I help you?”

“Yes, please!” Tensou says, and he backs up just an inch. “Can you please help me get to a movie theater downtown on Saturday night? That would be tremendous help, Jake!”

Jake looks confused, and then he grins. “A movie theater? What movie do you want to go see?” 

Tensou mimics taking in a big breath before he whispers, “Short Circuit!”  
Jake places a hand up to his chin. “Short Circuit? I think my older brother used to like that movie. Isn’t it about a robot?” 

“Oh, yes,” Tensou says, nodding, “It is about a very brave and courageous robot who saves the world!” 

“Have you seen it?” Jake wonders, and Tensou nods again. 

“Many times,” he says happily. 

“Well,” Jake scratches his head, “Then why do you want to go to the theater to see it? Theaters are pretty expensive, little guy.” 

“I have some savings,” Tensou says, turning his head away, “I would just like to see it… on the big screen.”

“Tensou, you’re a trip,” Jake says, standing, “Take it from me, movie theaters are totally overrated. I’ll see if I can get you a DVD, though, okay?” 

And Jake turns and leaves the command center, not seeing how Tensou’s wheels slope out from under him. 

***

Friday night, Tensou is running out of time, but luckily there’s a monster attack, and Emma is the first to arrive. 

“Emma!” Tensou says, speeding over to her, “Please, can I ask you a favor?” 

“What is it, Tensou?” Emma says, but she looks like she’s in a hurry, and of course there’s a monster attack going on, but Tensou tries anyway. 

“I have the money to go, and am not needed here barring emergency, and I would very much like to go somewhere tomorrow night. Would you take me?” 

“Um,” Emma says, frowning. “Maybe, but can we talk about it later? I’m a little busy right now.”

“Yes!” Tensou says, “Yes, of course!” 

But after the battle the rangers don’t come back to the command center, and Emma doesn’t follow up. 

***

Saturday morning, Tensou makes a decision and breaks protocol. 

He braces himself for a final try before ringing Noah’s morpher. 

“This is Noah,” Noah’s voice comes over the comm quickly, making Tensou start as it always does.

“Oh, hello Noah,” Tensou says calmly.

“What’s going on?” Noah asks, his voice hushed, and Tensou wonders where he is. 

“There’s no emergency,” Tensou says, and quickly follows up with, “But I do need to ask you something, Noah, as my friend.”

“Oh,” Noah says, “What is it?” 

“I require transportation this evening,” Tensou says, and Noah waits a moment. 

“To where? Is it ranger related?” Noah wonders.

“Um, well, not exactly,” Tensou says, and he hears Noah sigh exasperatedly. 

“Tensou, you know better than to use this for anything but ranger emergencies,” Noah says, and he quickly clicks off the comlink. 

“But-” Tensou tries, but it’s too late. “Ooooooohhhh,” Tensou moans, “What do I do now, Johnny Five?” 

***

Tensou sits in his quite corner in the command center, his main protocols off, watching Johnny Five get struck by lightning by himself, knowing Gosei will catch any invaders before it becomes too serious. 

“No, Johnny Five,” Tensou says to the screen, “Life is not a malfunction. Friendship is a malfunction!” 

Oil leaks out of Tensou’s third optical array, but he doesn’t fix it. 

***

“What was that about?” Emma asks as Noah comes back to their table at Ernie’s. 

“It’s nothing,” Noah says, and everyone visibly relaxes, “Tensou was just being silly.” 

“What did he want?” Troy wonders, and Noah shrugs. 

“He wanted me to take him somewhere tonight,” Noah supplies, and around the table, everyone eyes suddenly turn to their own drinks. “What?” 

“Did he say where?” Gia wonders, and Noah shakes his head. “Well, I think I know.”

“He asked you, too?” Jake asks, and Gia looks over at him. “The movie?”

Gia nods. 

“So that’s what he wanted to ask me last night,” Emma says, “I forgot he wanted to talk to me until just now.”

“Wait,” Troy says, holding up a hand, “He asked all of you to take him to a movie?” 

“What movie?” Noah wants to know. 

“Short Circuit,” Jake says, looking guilty. “It’s playing tonight downtown, at the old Classic theater, double feature. It’s his favorite.”

“I can understand why,” Noah agrees, “It’s a very funny film.”

“Actually,” Jake says, and if it’s possible he looks even guiltier as he realizes, “He said it was about a brave and courageous robot who saves the world.” 

“Oh,” Emma says, and then she exchanges a look with Gia, and together they both repeat, “ _Oh_.”

“Poor Tensou,” Troy says, “He only asked me if I liked movies. I was too distracted to pay attention to what he wanted.”

“I told him it wasn’t a good idea to leave the command center,” Gia says, biting her lip. 

“I said I’d get him the DVD,” Jake tries, shrugging, and Emma hangs her head. 

“I didn’t even let him get the words out,” she says. 

“I just hung up on him for using the communicators for non-emergencies,” Noah says, feeling terrible. 

“What time does the movie start?” Troy asks, and together they spring into action. 

***

“Tensou?” Emma’s voice calls into the dimmed command center, and Tensou lifts his eyes out of his movie, but doesn’t immediately answer her. 

“Are you here, buddy?” Jake calls, looking around. 

“Do you think,” Gia whispers to Noah, but the rest is inaudible. 

If Tensou breathed, he would sigh. Instead he clicks off his movie and rolls out into the light. “Hello, Rangers,” he says sadly, “What can I do for you?”

“There you are,” Noah says, smiling, and Tensou looks away from them. 

“Yes, here I am,” he agrees sadly. 

He sees them exchange looks, but he doesn’t pay it any mind. Clearly they just need something, another suit upgrade, another repair… friendship between humans and robots is overrated and one-sided, Tensou thinks bitterly. 

“Tensou,” Emma says, putting her handsw on her knees to look him in the eyes, “I’m sorry I blew you off yesterday, and we’re all sorry that we haven’t been listening to you very well this week.” 

Tensou’s visual inputs perk up against his will. 

“You are very important to us,” Gia adds, “And we want you to know we didn’t understand how important going to your movie was to you.”

“But we do now,” Troy says, and Tensou feels his wheels lift upright, “And we have a plan.”

“You ready to go to the movies, Tensou Five?” Jake asks, and Tensou is so excited he starts whirling around them all in circles at 40 miles per hour. 

***

They sneak him in with a baby stroller, which means Tensou’s ticket costs nothing, but once in the theater, he simply pretends to be a child cosplaying, and nobody pays them much mind. 

They sit in the middle row, and Noah brings a special pillow to prop Tensou up on the seat so he won’t roll off from excitement. 

“I must apologize rangers,” Tensou says as they sit and wait for the movie to begin, “For doubting our friendship. Friendship is not a malfunction, after all!” 

“Oh, Tensou,” Emma says, and she gives him a hug while the others laugh. 

“Jake?” Tensou asks as the light dim. 

“Yeah?” Jake asks, mouth stuffed full of popcorn. 

“May I hold the popcorn?” Tensou asks. 

“Tensou,” Troy warns, “You can’t eat popcorn.”

“Also you don’t have arms,” Noah adds. 

“I know,” Tensou says happily, unfazed, “I would just like to hold it. For the experience!”

Jake laughs, but he puts the tub of popcorn in front of Tensou on his seat, and the opening theme rolls. 

Surrounded by his friends, popcorn in his lap, Tensou finally watches his favorite movie, about a brave and courageous robot who saves the world on the big screen.


End file.
